


Salmagundi Flies Again

by AJHall



Category: Chalion Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold, Lucifer (TV), Richard Hannay Series - John Buchan, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle, ask a manager, 더 킹：영원의 군주 | The King: Eternal Monarch (TV)
Genre: Advice, Crossover, Fix-It of Sorts, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:22:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27727435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AJHall/pseuds/AJHall
Summary: Another collection of works from the black lagoon
Comments: 9
Kudos: 23





	1. Ask a Manager: the Chalion Edition

The CEO of our family business, Divine Teapots Inc, is my much older half-brother “Orlando”. He’s based in the capital city, which means I don’t really know him very well; after our father’s death my mother had a sort of nervous breakdown, with the result that me and my (younger) brother “Ted” grew up at our grandmother’s home in the country so we could have a stable family life notwithstanding my mother’s ongoing mental health problems. Anyway, that all changed when Ted and I were invited by Orlando to come to the capital to take up internships with Divine Teapots, so we could get a feel for the business. 

Well, it’s been a disaster. It’s quite clear to me that these so-called “internships” are just sinecures, with no real duties attached, and there are all sorts of interpersonal issues arising as a result. The worst effect has been on Ted, though, since he simply doesn’t see what’s so clear to me; he genuinely does feel he’s here on merit, not nepotism and he’s getting in with a frat-boy set who are exploiting him for his connections. The really frustrating thing is that I’d love to be properly involved in Divine Teapots, and actually start getting a sense how the structure works. Thank goodness, I’ve been assigned a mentor (“Charles”) who really gets what’s going on. Charles is amazing: he’s kind, experienced (decorated combat veteran, as well!) and he’s advised me a lot, but he doesn’t have much power to change anything in the organisation. Recently I’ve started to feel worried that by leaning on him too obviously I may end up landing him in trouble: the office politics inside Divine Teapots are literally toxic, and Charles has hinted that he’s got history with a couple of the C-Suite.

The real problem is Orlando. I’ve recently discovered that he’s been concealing how serious his own health problems are. The currently CFO, “Jay”, has exploited Orlando’s health issues to worm his way into a massive position of power and I strongly suspect he may be siphoning monies out of the business for his own use. I don’t have proof of this (and Charles has repeatedly told me that making allegations without proof only makes matters far worse), but I’ve tried to get Orlando interested in carrying out anti-fraud audits on the basis that it’s just good business practice, and he’s absolutely refused, saying that it would put Jay in an awkward position and be far too much expense. 

The other problem is Jay’s brother “Don” (who’s also employed in the business, even though he’s in a role for which he’s seriously under qualified). There’s no way of softening this, and I don’t want to even try. Don is a horror. He’s a serial sexual predator, and he’s harassed me, my best friend, and even I suspect Orlando’s wife, “Sally”. He will not take no for an answer. I’ve tried complaining to Orlando but he just goes into three wise monkeys mode and refuses to listen. Ted, much to my horror, is being influenced by him in his attitudes to other female staff of Divine Teapots.

What terrifies me the most is that if Orlando has to step down through illness, Jay and Don will have even more power than before, and any chance I had of fending Don off will be gone.

What can I do? I’m literally praying for a way out of this mess every night.

* * *


	2. The Mysterious Matter of the Morstan Relations

Those attentive readers who have followed my accounts of the career of my esteemed friend Sherlock Holmes may, from time to time, have detected a degree of reticence - some correspondents have gone so far as to charge me with inconsistency - in the manner in which I speak of my late wife. It is only now that I am able to shed light on a murky and, indeed, painful part of my own history. It ill-becomes a man to confess to having, by his own conduct, thrust away from him she who should be the cherished of his bosom, his one ewe-lamb, whom he has sworn before God to love and to honour. However, if a man has acted the blackguard in such a manner, at least he should acknowledge his faults openly - at least, where doing so does not increase the pain to the wronged lady concerned, or risk jeopardising the security of the realm.

My friend has often observed and commented on - with too much cause, alas! - my inability to draw conclusions from the data presented to my notice. I should, perhaps, have inferred Mary’s unhappiness from the increasing frequency of her visits to a parent whom she had in fact informed me at the outset of our acquaintance had died before Mary was of an age to commence school. But I believe I may be pardoned, given the stress and excitement of the events which culminated in Mary’s accepting my hand, if minor family particulars had made no great impression on my mind. However, when in successive weeks my wife took leave of me to visit, in order, a) her father, Major Morstan, late of the 34th Bombay Infantry; b) her grandfather, Colonel Morstan, who did such signal service in quelling the late Mutiny in India; c) her great, great, great, great, great uncle, Ensign Morstan, who perished holding his section of the line at Plassey; and, finally, d) Sir Harold Edward Morstan, Alderman of the City of London and one of the original founding stockholders of the Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies, it should have occurred to me that Mary was seeking to convey a message to me, and that message one such as no husband desires to hear from the lips of his bride.

I had intended to confront her with it on her return from her visit to Sir Harold, but Holmes’s arrival and demand that I accompany him forthwith to the Continent intervened, and the whole world knows how broken was the man who crawled back to London following the awful events at the Reichenbach Falls.

I am now in a position to reveal that it was my unshakeable horror and depression over the supposed death of my friend which finally led Mary to take the irrevocable step of faking her own death in childbed (with, I am sorry to say, the active connivance of my friend’s brother, which Mycroft Holmes only admitted to on his own deathbed many years later) and, assuming the persona of a minor scion of the Scottish aristocracy having the family name of Arbuthnot, retreating into espionage work in Chinese Turkmenstan, in which role she ably assisted her country’s interests, until an unfortunate injury in the course of duty caused her to return to London to take up a more sedentary role in the training and direction of our active field agents in the region. Her outstanding contribution to the security of the Empire in that role has led to the singular honour - so I am told - of having the soubriquet under which she operated (the initial of her first name and, indeed, of the family name which she so unwisely, it now transpires, reliquished for the name of Watson) attached to the holder of that position in perpetuity.

* * *


	3. Served -- On Dry Ice

There would be an exquisite bowl of flawless Goryeo celadon awaiting her in her chambers when she retired, wrapped by Gon’s own hands in silk brocade and accompanied by a hand-calligraphed note. It would be displayed with pride, exclaimed over by lesser lights of the court, be bequeathed in due course to the National Museum of Corea, with the rest of the pieces he had given her over the years, so that the name ’Noh’ would live on in perpetuity, when ceramics experts talked of important collections.

No-one, seeing that gift, could doubt how much the King valued his senior Court Lady, and with what impeccable taste he had chosen to commemorate her eighty-sixth year under heaven.

Her real present had taken months of planning, favours called in from Busan traffic control and the National Data Centre, clandestine meetings with the Director of the Royal Music and three months remission of sentence for a covert surveillance genius from Pyongyang, whose efforts in industrial espionage for one industrial conglomerate had been unfortunately exposed as a result of two untimely deaths and a lightning-strike takeover by their principal rival.

All of which explains why Gon happened to be standing next to Lady Noh, laughing to her across freshly filled champagne flutes, the carefully-vetted Court photographers circulating for the perfect shot, when Prime Minister Koo, her strategically late entrance timed to the millisecond, strode into the room, wearing ten centimetre heel Stuart Weitzman pumps and a Prada cocktail dress.

Which, by the most unfortunate coincidence, turned out to be the moment when the Director of the Royal Music had ordered the chamber orchestra to strike up his own arrangement of the Lloyd Webber composition, ’High Flying Adored.’

Lady Noh swiveled to witness the Prime Minister’s reaction. The photograph capturing their respective expressions would have commanded a considerable price on the open market, but the gossip magazines never stood a chance. There was a sealed bid in play, and not even _Hello!_ could hope to match it.

“Pyeha!” Lady Noh, turning the bowl round and round in her hands. “You are too generous to an old woman.”

He bowed, very low and without a trace of irony. “For that trifle? Lady Noh, you know, and I know because you taught me, 12th century ceramics may make you feel very good, but the feeling of taking one’s enemy’s pride into both hands and crushing it to atoms lasts forever.”


	4. Nominative Determinism

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post canon

“Odyssey Pomegranate,” Tae-Eul said meditatively. “No. Pomegranate Odyssey. That’s the right way round, I think. Western style.”

Gon, who had been thinking about continuous delta functions, boggled at her across the remains of breakfast. “What on earth are you talking about?” 

She waved a hand, airily. “It’s a name. At least, I think it’s a name. It came up in an address book, anyway. In my current case. I thought you might have an idea which country it might be from. The US, perhaps. You’ve got family in California ,perhaps you could check with them when we get back –”

“ _No-one_ ,” Gon said decisively, “has a name like ’Odyssey Pomegranate’. Whichever way round you spell it.” Certain memories bubbled up from his first year at the Naval Academy, before Yeong had been old enough to join him there, when he had — perhaps, with the benefit of hindsight — tried too hard to fit in, to be the one of the boys. “At least, no-one has a _real_ name like Pomegranate Odyssey.”

“Oh!” Tae-Eul said, sounding like someone who has just found the missing pieces from the Christmas jigsaw under the dining room table. “A stripper. Perfect. That explains _everything_. Now I’ve got that sorted, I can deal with it first thing on Monday.”

He met her next weekend (from the little they gleaned before deciding to pack it in altogether, 1816 in the Joseon Era was _unspeakable_ : weather, cholera and famine in one massively unpleasant package) and asked her how her quest to find her stripper had gone. She wrinkled her nose.

“That’s the last time I’ll take your advice on names. I’ll never live it down at the station. Five days checking every stripper in Seoul, and then Pomegranate Odyssey only turns out to be a bloody bulk ore carrier.”


	5. Nothing New Under The Sun

All Kareen’s instincts warned against trusting this woman with wild hair and Cetagandan eyes and cheekbones, who had appeared from nowhere in the midst of the Residency gardens, where she had been enjoying the rare sweets of an evening’s stroll, alone save for the distant ImpSec guards.

“Who are you?”

She spoke, and felt the baby within her kick.

The wild-haired woman glanced down towards her belly, then with both hands casually swept her hair back into a pony-tail, securing it with a tie.

“I’m here too soon. I apologise.”

The words blazed across the Residency garden, arrogant in their sheer inadequacy. Kareen placed her hand on her belly and glared at the woman standing where she had no business being, and where, in fact, Captain Negri had personally ensured her no interloper could encroach.

“Tell me. Who are you?”

“I can’t. Not yet. But read this, please. And if you recognise anyone in it, know then to trust me when we meet again. Because that is when your son’s life will be in the balance. Trust me then.”

The book was printed and bound with real paper, a priceless artefact. Kareen dare not look at it long: from the noises from near the Residency buildings her lord and master was home, and demanding her presence. She turned to return indoors, dropping the slender volume into the pocket of her gown as she did so. Where the wild-haired women went, she could not tell. What followed was not good, but at least she preserved all knowledge of that encounter.

Much later, when she was quite sure she was alone, she opened the book. _Memoirs of lady Hyegyeong._ She took it into a quiet part of the Residency gardens, and began to read.

“The moods of the Crown Princess are very changeable of late,” Negri’s man reported. “Some part may be put down to her condition, of course, but I worry in case her mind is affected, The other night, they tell me, one of the court ladies referred to the Crown Prince, inadvertently using the familiar form, ’Prince Serg.’ The Crown Princess Kareen could simply have rebuked the informality, but instead she grew withdrawn, and after a moment or so murmured, as if no-one were present, ’Is’t Sado whom you mean, is it not, Caius Cassius?’”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Memoirs of lady Hyegyeong_ are the memoirs of the wife of Crown Prince Sado of Joseon, and detail (among other things) her husband's descent into violent madness which led to his father the Emperor arranging the Crown Prince's death in a spectacularly horrific manner.


	6. Don't Crow Too Soon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by this story:
> 
> —-  
> (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/10/italian-pensioner-fined-over-cockerels-early-morning-crowing)

“Any moment now, someone’s going to come rushing out to wring that bird’s neck, and stumble right over us. So much for being unobtrusive. Three days work gone up in smoke.”

“Oh, come on, now, Detective. Never say die. Have I never shown you my —”

“If he says, ’Inimitable way with a cock’ I’m not going to be responsible for my actions .”

“Ah, Detective Douche, exactly the riposte I might have expected from you. Short, unsubtle and disappointing. How very like –”

“Shut up, you two: it’s _stopped._ ”

“Poor Carlino; I feel so bad for him. But you know what they say, ’Snitches get stiches.’ So, let’s wrap up here, and then give Carlino a send off to remember, in my grandma’s special mole sauce, OK?”

“Now that, Ms Lopez, is what I _call_ the sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection. Bring it on!”


End file.
